U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Platt's voice was only fair but his meaning was clear when he shed his coat and picked up a guitar to sing the blues--literally--to several dozen diplomats and Philippine President Corazon Aquino. "I've got the base review blues," he warbled. "Blue as I can be." The figures make me stagger; The compensation is so high; They're asking me for billions; I think I'm gonna die.

President Bush, responding to the crisis in the Philippines on Friday even as he moved toward his first summit meeting with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, vowed to continue American aid to the embattled government of President Corazon Aquino. "I strongly support Mrs. Aquino and she knows it," Bush said, as U.S. officials expressed "cautious optimism" that the Philippine leader had survived the most serious assault thus far on her government by restive military officers.

Ending a week of often rancorous talks, U.S. and Philippine negotiators agreed Friday to new negotiations on the future of six American military bases in the Philippines, setting the stage for a renewed U.S. military presence in the western Pacific. Publicly, the negotiators agreed only to a "discussion" of a "new relationship" between Manila and Washington, including political, economic and military matters. But U.S.

Suspected Communist rebels killed an army officer Friday in Manila's escalating "war of the streets," and police announced three more arrests in the slayings of three U.S. servicemen. Also on Friday, about 4,000 leftists marched near the presidential palace to mark the first anniversary of the unsolved assassination of labor leader Rolando Olalia. The march took place without serious incident. In the latest killing, four gunmen ambushed Lt. Col.

Damage from the Mt. Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines could cause the Bush Administration to reduce or pull back its offers for the continued use of the strategic American military bases in the Philippines, Administration officials said Thursday.

The commander of U.S. military forces in Asia and the Pacific on Friday blamed Communist terrorists for last month's slaying of three Americans in the Philippines, adding that such "despicable, cold-hearted criminality" will only serve to bring the U.S. and Philippine governments closer together. "The U.S. will not back down to terrorists," declared Adm. Ronald Hays, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, in a speech to American businessmen here.

Hundreds of thousands of people fled in terror Saturday from the combined wrath of an angry volcano, repeated earthquakes and a fierce typhoon that washed out bridges, destroyed homes, flooded villages and scattered thick ash for hundreds of miles. In an awesome display of nature's power, day turned black as midnight by midafternoon across central Luzon and as far south as Manila as a relentless, hard rain of golf-ball-sized pumice, pebbles and ash poured down.

After 22 years in the military, Master Sgt. Oliver Davis thought he had seen it all. But the wicked force that nature has been wielding against the Philippines was enough to make even a seasoned Air Force veteran queasy. "It was like the end of the world," said Davis, 41. "A living hell. Rain. Lightning. Thunder. Ashes. Earthquakes. And the sky. . . . I've survived a lot, but I thought that this might be the end for me. "I didn't want to die in all that darkness."

President Bush welcomed Philippine President Corazon Aquino to the White House on Thursday, saying he is "confident" that the United States will be able to negotiate a new, long-term agreement to preserve the two American military bases in the Philippines.